lover's spit left on repeat
by a vegetable
Summary: Dirk whispers, "God, I love summer. It's nothing but an excuse to go out and have fun that we freaking deserve. Like, it doesn't even matter what you do. Go to the movies, drive to the middle of nowhere to watch the day go by, go get drunk off your face. It just doesn't matter and I love it."


_A/N: a little bit inspired by chapter 18 of More Than This by Patrick Ness except with some summer vibes. Also, I definitely recommend More Than This, it's such a good read wow,,,, Seth and Gudmund's relationship was just so adorable and it made me want to write some fluffy dirkjakes. Title from Ribs by Lorde._

The gentle clicking of Dirk's broken fan pushes cool air around the room, making highways up cold through the wet, summer heat that Texas throws at you through the open doors of the balcony. Dirk's sheets smell like him and you lie on top of them, feeling the crispness seep through your shirt, into your skin. A vaguely Jake-shaped crease is made on the sheets, still cool from your presence, and you revel in the feeling of being there. June. Four, maybe five weeks until school finishes and you have six whole weeks of mucking around to enjoy, with Dirk and with Roxy and Jane. You're so excited; your breath grows slightly faster, slightly deeper, heating up your cheeks.

Dirk has draped himself over the balcony, legs dangling through the rungs and arms behind him, propping him up in a lazy obtuse angle. His head is angled to you, eyes fixed on the shape of your body, eagle spread against his bed. He removed his shirt maybe half an hour ago, complaining about the heat, and you feel embarrassed that it's hard to drag your eyes off of the few beads of sweat that roll down his back. He's smiling, if only slightly, but it's there, and it glows in the rectangle of honey coloured light that the sun throws over his face.

His jaw is moving, chewing on the pomegranate seeds that lay scattered like a split cranium over a slightly chipped plate by his side. He grabs a handful every now and then, chews thoughtfully for a few minutes and then spits the seeds of the balcony's edge. You watch every movement, as he watches each of yours, and there's a sort of calm acknowledgement between your locked stares.

"Are you going to sit around seed spitting all afternoon or will you join me up here, Strider?" You joke, turning your head to catch the shaft of cool air wafting towards you, slowly dissipating as the fan turns its head.

"As much as I'd like to join you up there bro, it's a bit too warm to be initiating cuddles right about now, don't you think?" Dirk smirks to himself, running a hand through his hair, being careful not the knock the shades he'd pushed into his hairline.

Dirk stands up anyway, pushing his plate of pomegranate seeds away carefully with his foot. He pads, feather light, towards the bed, slow like the gusts of cool air from the fan. He lays down, chest to the sheets and head tilted at you. The edge of his glasses digs into the pillow and he removes them, places them on the bedside table and smiles at you.

It's always odd seeing him without those shades, as much as you enjoy being able to look him straight in the eye. It's almost as if those stupid sunglasses have become a part of him, as much a feature of his person as your too large teeth are to you, Jane's round cheeks are to her and Roxy's aquiline nose to her.

"What're you thinkin' about, English?" Dirk drawls, his accent always thicker, slightly sleazier, when he's tired. The heat has made both of you groggy; his eyes are lidded, dark and sunken. The school year has tired him out, you know, it's tired you too, and the amount of homework the two of you have ploughed through together might as well be tattooed against your brains at this point.

Sometimes the two of you would just say, blow it, forget stupid homework and stupid school, let's go out and do something even stupider. And you would. You'd sit in trees at a park you were far too old for, you'd get lost in Roxy's ridiculously huge house whilst she lay draped over your laps, explaining to Jane over the phone that, "Yeah, Dirk and Jake are here. No, we're not studyin', sorry Janey. I know we're delinquents. You love us though _so_ -"

"You." you reply, "You and the girls and how much fun we're going to have this summer."

Dirk's hand slips to your waist, running over the waistband of your shirts, across the plain of brown skin, and over onto the hem of your shirt. He's not inviting you for a hug (you're pretty sure you'd burst into flames if you so much as touched each other in this heat) but he's doing his best to substitute the intimacy that the weather demands you cannot have.

"Up for another intense round of water balloon warfare in Jane's back yard?" he laughs softly into the pillow, eyes lighting slightly.

You remember that afternoon, last summer. Soaked to the bone, the four of you had laid in the garden, exhausted after pelting each other to pieces. It had been a merciless fight for victory, and you knew as soon as Roxy and Dirk teamed up that you and Jane were dead. It had only taken a water balloon to the face on Roxy's behalf for you to lose your glasses and be doomed to an evening of rooting through the vegetable patch in Jane's garden whilst the others sat and watched, sipping from glasses of lemonade that Jane's dad had made and pointing, very unhelpfully, at places they thought they saw your glasses. By the time you finally found them again, very dirty and in need of a good wash, the girls had brought out bowls of peanuts and chips and proposed that the lot of you watch the sun set before going to bed. It is, to your memory, one of the best days of your life.

"As long as I don't have to spend a good half an hour looking for my spectacles again then, yes, that sounds spectacular."

"I'll make sure of it." Dirk whispers, "God, I love summer. It's nothing but an excuse to go out and have fun that we freaking _deserve_. Like, it doesn't even matter what you do. Go to the movies, drive to the middle of nowhere to watch the day go by, go get drunk off your face. It just doesn't matter and I love it."

You sigh at the wistful look on his face, the slackness in his open mouth and jaw. You feel yourself smiling softly, taking his hands, pulled to his chest previously, in your own and tangling your fingers together.

"This summer's going to be brilliant, mate." you say, "I just know it will be."


End file.
